Lars Nijman, now 24 years old, originally from Holland plays the drums since he was six years old. After winning two national contests seven years later (TV show “Bijna Beroemd” and Kunstbende) his drumming career got serious. He performed with drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk (Golden Earring) in front of 25.000 people, Simon Phillips (Toto), Thomas Lang (Peter Gabriel, Robbie Williams) and many Dutch drummers. Cesar even called Lars “the most promising drum talent in Holland” during an interview on the famous dutch TV show “De Wereld Draait Door”.

At the age of seventeen he participated the Berklee College of Music 5-Week summer program where he was selected to become a member of the “Funk All Star Band”. This band was led by Tiger Okoshi (Buddy Rich) and performed in the Berklee Performance Center.

After graduating from high school he wanted to study at Berklee College of Music, but initially he didn’t had the money to go. He still needed additional funds beside an $18000/year scholarship provided by Berklee. That’s why he started a crowdfunding campaign when he was nineteen years old. People could donate money for his study in return of a small reward (signed drumstick, drum lessons etc.).

The campaign started April 15th 2013 and every week he did performances all around Holland to promote his crowdfunding campaign. On May 10th 2013 he was invited to Holland’s biggest and most popular talk show called “De Wereld Draait Door” (1 million viewers/day). Lars got interviewed about his campaign and did a drum solo. After the show his campaign went crazy: in 24 hours time more than 20.000 euro was donated. The crowdfunding campaign ended 15th of June 2013 and in exactly two months time 850 people donated more than 45.000 euro. He had to sign around 550 drumsticks and send it to his backers. From that point on he could pay his Berklee tuition and is very proud that he had the chance to study at this prestigious college.

In January 2016 Lars got a work visa in order to work as a drummer throughout the USA. His biggest dream is to do international tours with big pop artists like Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars.